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Download Article (PDF) Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 368 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2019) Distance Changes as the Means of Expression in the Cinema Art Anry Vartanov Ekaterina Salnikova Mass Media Arts Department Mass Media Arts Department State Institute for Art Studies State Institute for Art Studies Moscow, Russia Moscow, Russia E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Abstract—The principle of the changing distance between art saw an urgent need for a variety of camera positions in the camera and the object is discussed in the article. The relation to the subject. In fact, many opportunities of authors write about significant features of the changing changing the distance can be found in early photography. It distance in art films of the twentieth century and note some actually shows how a new technical art gradually reveals its new details in the use of changing distance in the art films of unique capabilities. Photography boldly varies the distance to nowadays. It helps to realize the transformation of cinema the subject, which is especially true for such widespread poetics in the current period. The important trend today is the genres as a photo essay and a photo series [4]. Even before effects of the static camera in the climax dramatic scenes. The the birth of screen art, these genres solved problems in many authors analyze several scenes in the films of Fellini, respects similar to those of cinema and television. Tarkovsky, Steve McQueen to describe the aesthetical difference between the auteur film of XX century and modern Cinema and television - dynamic arts - went much further intellectual film directing. than photography. Life is moving forward captured by cine- or tele-cameras. Similarly, a camera itself is moving on a Keywords—cinema; poetics; camera; changing distance; trolley, a crane or in operator’s hands. Finally, an illusion of view; artistic vision; close-up; long shot; Fellini; Tarkovsky; movement is created due to the smooth change of the focal Steve McQueen length of the lifting lens (zoom lens). Because of all these forms of movement, the distance between the object and its I. INTRODUCTION image on the screen changes. Cinema theorists considered a change in the distance - In this article, in accordance with the methods of art that is, an ability of a camera to record reality from different history analysis, the authors set a goal to identify the most distances and at different scales - as one of the main significant features of the use of varying the distance in expressive means of cinema [1] [2]. Together with the independent films of the 20th century. It also raises the montage and perspective, it was part of the famous Bela question of what is new in changing distances in the modern Balazs’ triad, which at first focused mainly on the close-up cinema, that is, cinema of the end of the 20th - beginning of [3]. In many theoretical works there were disputes over who the 21st century. The relevance of this topic is related to the was the first to use the close-up and what film it was in. For fact that the aesthetics of cinema is undergoing significant aesthetics of silent cinema, the close-up, indeed, assumed transformation at the turn of the century. This is reflected in tremendous significance. The chance to bring a camera close domestic and foreign studies [5], [6], [7]. However, the to the face of an actor, to show emotional states experienced, phenomenon of a change in the distance appears to have had a decisive influence on the formation of cinema as a insufficient reference yet and calls for a closer scrutiny. dramatic art. Equally important are the opportunities of general shots, II. A CHANGE IN THE DISTANCE IN INDEPENDENT FILMS especially because of their correlation, montage, overflow OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY into other shots, including large and superlarge ones. In the As the classic of the theory of visual culture R. Arnheim first program of the Lumiere brothers, shown in the "Grand wrote, “in the theater ... the spectator sits at the same distance Café", this quality was already actively exploited. "The from the stage all the time. In the cinema, however, he seems arrival of the train" was all one shot. Yet, it was not to be jumping from place to place, looking from a distance monotonous, but changeable. The train approaching a and at close range, from above and through the window, to stationary camera, the transformation of a point on the the right and to the left” [8]. In this structure, close-up is only horizon into a huge steam locomotive - all that gave some one of the means, but it is precisely because of its contrast specific cinematic dynamics to the image. There was a with theatrical poetics that the early history of cinema change of shots from the most distant, general to a close-up. distinguishes this expressive means as the most cinematic, However, we should not forget about photography, the which is the specificity of the new “technical” art. The predecessor of cinema. As early as the 19th century, photo inconsistency of a close-up as a narrative element is that, on Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 380 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 368 the one hand, it increases the amount of visual information thing, if God overturns the destruction of humanity through that the viewer reads at a time, but, on the other hand, it war. reduces the potential amount of on-screen narration developing in each frame. So, one of the simplest and most The way to new discoveries might be painful, often obvious functions of close-ups was to provide the viewer associated with disappointment and irony, but also with the with the most of visual information about what seems to be need to reconsider the attitude to art, to its inevitable the most important — that is, human nature displayed in convention. At the end of Federico Fellini’s “And the Ship gestures, facial expression, the look in people’s eyes. Sails On ...” (E la nave va, 1983), the camera moves to the Therefore, with the logic of an outstanding director and left. The microphone gets into the frame, followed by the cinema theorist David Wark Griffith, the need for close-ups operators, cameras, and complex lighting equipment. So, the will gradually disappear due to the increase in the size of a viewer sees that the ship, suffering the disaster at the cinema screen, where facial expressions of actors can be well epicenter of the sea battles of the First World War, as well as viewed with medium shots [9]. However, the enlargement of the disturbing sea abyss are just the scenery on the set. cinema screens went along with the birth and development of However, does this negate the tragedy the scenes on the ship the new “small screen” - television. It actualized a close-up were imbued with? Most likely not. The director reveals the paradox of art, which necessarily contains a convention in as well as the opportunity to deeper comprehend human nature, the “x-ray of personality,” according to V. Sappak order to emphasize the sanctity of spiritual values. [10]. At the same time, an actor or a presenter on television To sum up, one of the main things about independent can directly address the audience just like a pop artist. [11]. films of the twentieth century was the drama of transition No gigantism of modern cinema screens can eliminate from close-ups to medium and general plans. A change in the other effects of close-ups, including their symbolic meanings, distance contributed to the intensity of the process of which appear thanks to the total focus of the camera on one understanding the world. It emphasized the difference object only. Close-up signals the viewer about the unusual between illusions and reality, between different angles of an content of the image which remains beyond the continuous ambiguous author's view. The artistic goal of the director can narration. be described as the display of processes in the objective reality as well as in the reality of a man’s inner world. Both In addition, close-up often offers a riddle, making it of these realities appeared ethically and aesthetically difficult to recognize what is actually shown in the frame. complex, ambiguous, changeable. Moving ahead towards Close-ups contain less “life material”. Viewers sometimes this discovery, the director feels absolutely free to create even lose their bearings and cannot immediately understand different meanings. The viewers also seem to be engaged what a fragment is all about and what an overall picture of with the process. The changing distance bears the marks of the world is (or at least a specific dramatic situation, a place individual creative will, powerfully modeling the view of the of action, arrangement of objects in space). The transition reality. from this misunderstanding to understanding (with the help of medium and general shots), to finding the whole and III. TRANSFORMATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF VARYING restoring the coordinate system, is not only an important DISTANCE IN THE ARTHOUSE CINEMA OF THE XXI CENTURY formal device for cinema of the twentieth century. The era of computerization of many creative processes This is the philosophy of independent films, according to and sophistication of modern methods of creating screen which initially the relations between the part and the whole, images have a powerful impact on serious independent films, the hierarchy of the components of the picture of the world now increasingly called arthouse.
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